


Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

by Ifyouthknew



Series: Earth's Rambunctious Children [2]
Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Angst, Break Up Talk, Domestic Violence, Established Relationship, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Romance, The Lie & The Truths, WHAT?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ifyouthknew/pseuds/Ifyouthknew
Summary: Lassiter is insistent on Shawn telling him "the truth." Shawn gets hurt in the midst of chaos. Burton Guster—the knight in fuzzy sweater vest comes to his best friend's rescue.
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer
Series: Earth's Rambunctious Children [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109414
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed two characters from _Scrubs_. I do not own them.

“Sir, I heard some noise inside,” Buzz said into his Walkie-Talkie when his ear was plastered on the back door.

“Proceed with caution,” Lassiter replied. “Cortez is out of the country right now but it could be one of his minions. I’ll call for backup when necessary.”

Buzz wiped his sweaty palms on his uniform. This was not what he had expected when he volunteered to come with Lassiter to the hardened criminal’s house and play his temporary partner because Juliet had come down with the flu. They were only supposed to lead a team to set up surveillance inside and on the perimeter. If only they hadn’t arrived so much earlier than the tech team.

 _What does ‘Proceed with caution’ mean exactly?_ Buzz scratched his head and turned the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. Too nervous and too inexperienced, he pushed the door ajar and stepped into the house alone, protocol wiped out in his mind.

“Raise your hands where I can see them,” Buzz ordered with a trembling voice toward the backs of two men who were of roughly the same height and angrily whispering to each other in the kitchen.

When they did as told promptly and turned around, Buzz let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh thank god, it’s you guys.”

“Hey, Buzz.”

“You’re sweating like a waterfall.”

Buzz turned on his Walkie-Talkie. “I’m already inside, sir. It’s just Shawn and Gus.”

“Who is that?” Shawn asked.

“Lassiter,” Buzz answered. “What are you two doing here?”

“Um, the spirit told us to do exactly what you came here to do,” Shawn said without blinking.

“Set up surveillance?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s our job. And you don’t have the tools.”

“We just want to feel around and see which spots are the best. Save you some time.”

Before Buzz could thank them, Lassiter barged in from the back door, his face twisted and his scowl daggers to everyone in this room.

“McNab, go wait for the team outside.”

“Yes, sir.” Buzz hastily retreated away from them, the house now a ticking bomb to his eyes.

“Lassie, I can explain—” Shawn started, hands raised in front of him trying to placate his boyfriend who was, at this point, on the way to becoming a full-on mudslide that guarantees to destroy everything in its eyesight.

“This is breaking and entering,” Lassiter said in a low voice, two hands clutching the back of a couch.

“That’s what I told him.” Gus elbowed Shawn hard on his side.

“I can have you two arrested _right now_.”

“Come on, you have the warrant. We just came earlier than you,” Shawn argued, rolling his eyes. “Don’t be a lousy loser.”

“ _I_ have the warrant. Not _you_. And don’t think I don’t know you’re here to dig up evidence on your own.”

“That wouldn’t be illegal, would it?” Gus asked, trying to sound casual like he was merely discussing an op-ed about the stock exchange. “Considering you got a judge to issue you the warrant.”

“Oh, but you didn’t know that before McNab showed up,” Lassiter said through clenched teeth. “You just thought it would be fun obtaining evidence illegally so you could play the psychic charade in the station later.”

Gus feigned a laugh. “What are you talking about?! That’s crazy! That’s not—”

“Go home!” Lassiter barked.

That was a command Gus was dying to hear. He turned around to leave without a second to lose. Shawn followed closely behind, his head bowed as if he would be invisible this way.

“Not you.” Lassiter grabbed Shawn’s elbow and yanked him back.

Shawn pled to Gus with his eyes. It was a cry for help a best friend couldn’t ignore. “He’s your boyfriend. You can’t arrest him,” Gus protested.

“Says who?” Lassiter asked incredulously.

“Says the Constitution,” Shawn replied, “and your soft marshmallow heart only I can see.”

Lassiter simply stalked off, dragging Shawn with him.

“No, you’re not arresting him!” Gus blocked the door with his body. “I won’t let you do that.”

“Relax. I’m taking him back to my place so we can have a talk. For real this time.” He pushed Gus aside, his hand squeezing Shawn’s arm tighter.

“Shawn!” Gus yelled from behind when his friend was shoved into Lassiter’s car. “Call me if you’re arrested and need a lawyer! I won’t leave you to a public defender! I’ll pay—no, your dad will pay for an expensive one! And call me if he hit you!”

Gus’s voice trailed off as the car sped away from the Cortez residence.

Lassiter furrowed his eyebrows in utter confusion. “Why would he think I’d hit you?”

“Not a clue, dude,” Shawn snorted, rubbing his arm that was bound to bruise tomorrow. “Not a clue.”

* * *

When they reached Lassiter’s apartment, the night had fallen and the sudden coolness brought by the dark slipped in through closed doors and windows. Lassiter dumped Shawn onto his couch and headed for the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of scotch to calm his nerves but then decided to gulp down the drink from the bottle directly.

“Since you’re there, could you bring me a beer?” Shawn asked. All he got was a glare and a clunk of the bottom of the bottle hitting the kitchen counter. “All right, no beer…Not fair at all. But your house, your rules, right?” he mumbled. “Can’t even get a beer…”

“Call Guster,” Lassiter said, returning to the living room and plopping down on an armchair, “and tell him I didn’t arrest you.” He scoffed, “I bet if he doesn’t hear from you tonight, he’s gonna call your dad. Then it’s a whole nother mess I can’t deal with.”

“He’s just being a good friend,” Shawn said, already dialing Gus’s number.

After Shawn hung up, Lassiter cut to the chase. “Do you know how lucky you’re today?”

“Lucky?” Shawn tilted his head. “Excuse me but I don’t see today making the top three of my lucky days. Not even top five. I did find a ten-dollar bill in my jeans pocket earlier but turns out it was from Monopoly.”

“If the one walked in on you had been another cop instead of McNab, or worse—Cortez himself, do you think you could still joke around like you’re doing now?”

“This is probably not the answer you’d like but—yes, I could. Lassie, I don’t see what’s the big deal with this. It’s what the job entails. You gotta risk a little if you want the gain. Am I right?”

“Oh, you mean the job of you being a fraud?” Lassiter leaned forward and dug his elbows into his knees.

“The job of me being an awesome and highly skilled psychic detective who has a crime solve rate near a hundred percent which you and your police department had had more than trouble achieving before I came along.”

“So I should be thanking you now for your dedication to cheating and manipulating us. Is that what you’re saying?”

“You _should_ be grateful but less sarcasm would be better.”

Lassiter stood up, started pacing in the living room. The rug newly bought by Shawn as a gift dulled the sound of his heavy and scornful footsteps. If not, Shawn thought absent-mindedly, Mrs. Jensen downstairs would come knocking again.

“I want the truth,” Lassiter stated simply, halting in front of Shawn.

He looked up. The hovering giant above him was determined to not let this go tonight. “I ate your mashed potato in the station. Not Jules.”

“For god’s sake…” Lassiter closed his eyes and took in a large chunk of air.

“I also shared some of it with Gus. It wasn’t as crispy as you might think. But if you insist, I’ll repay you with my bod.” Shawn grabbed Lassiter’s tie and tugged him down. To him, this was the ultimate solution to every argument between them since they got together. Nothing couldn’t be solved with some rock and roll in bed.

Caught by surprise, Lassiter almost fell flat onto Shawn, but he managed to support himself with two hands on the back of the couch. “Let go,” he warned.

“No.”

“Let go.”

“No.”

“Let go or I’ll snap all your fingers before you can even scream ‘mama.’” Lassiter couldn’t believe it actually worked as Shawn released his tie immediately. Straightening his back, he took off his rumpled tie. “You know I don’t really mean it, right?” he asked in a bland tone.

Shawn didn’t answer. Instead, he sprang to his feet and lashed out. “Why does ‘the truth’ matter to you that much? We’re happy, so why are you still trying to sabotage my job and tank everything? I get that you have to put up a front in the station, but in private?”

“Well, forgive me for not wanting to see you end up in prison or getting killed by a felon who has a rap sheet longer than a fishing pole.”

“You sound just like my dad. All you want to do is control my life. ‘Shawn, don’t tie your shoes like that.’ ‘Shawn, that punk girl’s no good for you.’ ‘Shawn, your bike is a death trap.’ ‘Shawn, your job’s a fraud.’”

“Hey, watch your mouth.” Lassiter pointed a finger at Shawn. “I’m nothing like your father. I’m the one who got your motorcycle back. We’re talking about you bringing a lie into our relationship here. So try to cry about your daddy issue another day, ’cause I’m sick of you not taking this seriously time after time.”

Shawn threw up his hands and rolled his eyes. He turned around and headed over to Lassiter’s bedroom. Passing the windows, he glimpsed outside and shockingly found the Blueberry was parked in front of the building and Gus was sitting in the driver’s seat, tapping the steering wheel. _If I rob a bank, I’ll definitely call you. If I were Sonny, you’d be Sal…then that would make Lassie…my wife?_

“Yes, by all means, leave,” Lassiter sneered. “That’s what you do best, isn’t it?”

“Did you see me leaving through the front door? I’m turning to bed. We’re both too angry to talk about this right now. We can pick it up another day. Feel free to follow. We’re never too angry to have angry sex.”

“Shawn…”

Shawn sighed, stopping on his track and turning around again. “Yes, Lassie?”

“I can’t do this.”

“Fine, we’ll just sleep, but you’re wasting a huge opportunity here.”

“I mean,” Lassiter started slowly as if the words tasted bitter than cyanide, “I can’t be with a walking talking lie and pretend to be fine with it anymore.”

After a beat, Shawn responded, “So you actually want me to leave.”

“I want the truth.”

“If I can’t give it to you?”

“Then I don’t know what we’re doing here.”

The silence was thick and damp between them, leaving no room to turn around the ship that had already sailed. Shawn walked over to Lassiter.

“Come on, you can’t call it quits when you’re angry.” He wrapped his arms around Lassiter and plastered his cheek on his chest. Lassiter didn’t return the hug, but the heart that pounded rapidly against his ear was either out of rage or it meant Lassiter would forgive him eventually because his heart still hearted him. “We’ll sleep it off, Carlton. Everything will be okay in the morning.”

Lassiter wanted this to be true so much. But he had made up his mind.

Shawn’s soft springy hair tickled his neck. All he could breathe in was the lemon smell of his shampoo. And the warmth radiated from his body made it so much worse and harder.

Lassiter felt his nose sting. “This is a mistake. It always has been.”

“No, it’s not,” Shawn said to Lassiter’s shirt.

“I convinced myself that one day you’d actually—you’re still that little deceitful lying sleazeball I knew since the first day.”

This time Shawn didn’t reply. He just hugged Lassiter tighter after the insult, which was he saying “Please don’t leave me.” He never thought he would one day stoop so low as to cast away his dignity in situations like this. He had imagined if he ever broke up with Lassiter, it would be him storming out and slamming the door in his face.

“It’s for the best if we end this tonight,” Lassiter said, his voice raw and cold.

“I disagree.”

“I don’t need your agreement.”

“Yes, you do. I’m not letting go and I’ve got all the time in the world, pal.”

Lassiter tried to shove down the arms caging him and pry the hands away but they were to no avail. True to his words, Shawn used all his strength to not letting go. He blamed himself for thinking this wouldn’t go down as ugly. If Shawn had been a grown-up, this wouldn’t have been handled like this. Irritated, Lassiter took a step toward the couch, trying to sit both of them down. But Shawn was so stubborn wanting to remain in the same spot that he dug his heels into the floor and didn’t move his feet.

In chaos made by entangled legs, Shawn lost his balance and fell backward, dragging Lassiter’s body down with him. Lassiter heard rather than saw when he was free-falling that Shawn hit his head on the coffee table then landed hard on the floor. If not for the rug, Lassiter thought, Mrs. Jensen would come knocking again.

As soon as he felt the arms were loosed around him, Lassiter stood up. What he saw next made him nauseous—Shawn was lying on his living room floor unconscious, a protruding bulge visible on his left shoulder even under his shirt.

“Shawn!” Lassiter knelt beside him instantly and patted his face. “Shawn! Can you hear me?”

Fortunately, after ten seconds, Shawn woke up before Lassiter could dial 9-1-1. Unfortunately, that was when the unbearable pain of his dislocated shoulder set in.

“Ahhhhhh—” he screamed and tilted his head backward, his eyes squeezed shut.

It was only eight at night, which meant most of his neighbors would hear this and think the worst and later, gossip about the worst of the worst. Lassiter didn’t know what got into him but he reached out a hand, attempting to muffle Shawn’s cry. He stopped himself halfway.

“Ahhhhhh—”

“Shh, shh. I’ll take you to a hospital,” Lassiter said under his breath but then wondered why he felt the need to skulk about when this wasn’t his fault. Was it? He circled around and helped Shawn to stand up from behind.

“Ahhhhhh—I don’t—ahh—need you. Ahhhhhh—” Shawn staggered toward the door as soon as he got on his feet while holding his left arm in front of him as if he was about to shake hand with someone, his face red in pain and fury. Lassiter caught up with him quickly, wanting to lend a helping hand. But Shawn shrugged his hand away and opened the door.

“You can’t go out alone like that!” Lassiter argued, too aware of minding his volume that could draw attention from his curious neighbors if not executed carefully.

“Gus is—down—ahh—there. So beat it!”

Having the door slammed in his face, Lassiter saw through the peephole that Shawn ambled like an old-aged turtle into the elevator while groaning all the way. He had to admit to himself he had chickened out. He could have chased Shawn instead of hiding in the comfort of his home. He was glad Shawn didn’t want him to take him to the hospital. Otherwise, he would have to face a load of accusing questions from every ignorant party unprepared. He shuddered at the image of Henry cursing and pointing fingers.

He felt guilty for not acting guilty for something he wasn’t even guilty of.

He went to the windows and parted the curtains an inch, just in time to see Gus bending down to strap Shawn in the passenger seat.

As if sensing there were a pair of eyes boring into him, Gus snapped his head up and his murderous glare was obvious even five floors up. He flipped Lassiter the bird before he got into the Blueberry and stepped on the gas without holding back, possibly exceeding the speed limit in this neighborhood.

Lassiter brought out his phone and texted Gus when the car drove out of his view: **Tell them to look out for a concussion. He passed out for ten secs.**

Later, he sent out another text: **It’s not what it looks like.**

* * *

“What does it say?” Shawn asked, lying on his side on a gurney while an ER doctor was suturing up his scalp.

“‘It’s not what it looks like,’” Gus sneered. “Could this man be more typical?”

“Actually, that’s true, Gus. This is not what it looks like.”

“Yeah, like I’m buying your I-bumped-my-head-on-the-coffee-table-and-knocked-my-shoulder-out-on-the-floor story.”

“That’s exactly what happened!”

“Tell him that’s not scientifically possible, Dr. Reid!”

Dr. Reid looked up hesitantly and stuttered, “Well, statistically speaking, the chance of that happening would be slim—”

“You see!” Gus threw up his hands, feeling justified.

“But,” she continued, “I wouldn’t say impossible.”

“Thank you, Elliot!” Shawn exclaimed. “Guess I’m just one of the lucky few.”

Gus shook his head dejectedly and brought his phone to his ears.

“Wait, who are you calling?” Shawn asked nervously, lifting his head off the bed only to be pushed down by the doctor again. “Please don’t tell me you’re calling my dad.”

“I’m not. I’m calling the police.”

“ _9-1-1, what’s your emergency?_ ”

“Hang up!” Shawn yelled.

“No!”

“Hang up!”

“No!”

“ _Sir, are you in any danger at the moment?_ ”

“Hang up! Hang up! _Hang up_!”

“Fine!” Gus tapped the phone then shoved it back into the pocket. “Thank god you broke up with him.”

“Who says I broke up with him?” Shawn said. “He broke up with me; I didn’t agree, hence me being taken to the ER.”

“Ha, so you admit he did this to you,” Gus said, his tone suddenly serious.

“I didn’t admit anything, Gus.”

“If he didn’t do this to you, why isn’t he here by your side?” Gus dragged his chair closer to Shawn’s bed.

Shawn went silent.

“I thought so,” Gus concluded. “Give me a reason not to call the police again right now.”

“Because I’m a grown man who’s your friend and you should believe in your friend all the time?”

Gus thought for a second. “Doc, what do you think?”

“I think,” Dr. Reid started, choosing her words carefully, “we should always believe in the victims.”

“Thank—” Shawn paused. “What?! I’m not the victim!”

“I didn’t say you are the victim,” she said hastily, trying to salvage the damage.

“No, you said it.” Gus smiled, glad the doctor was secretly taking his side. “We all heard it.”

“All finished!” she said promptly before she could even put the dressing on the wound. Then she scurried off to find an orthopedist.

When the curtain was drawn open for a second behind Shawn’s back, Gus saw the man that made his teeth itch sitting in the waiting area, his head bowed, his face pale.

“Shawn, I need to use the bathroom real quick,” Gus told him. “You okay by yourself?”

“Like I said, Gus—grown man.”

Gus patted his leg then stalked off.

“To what do we owe the horror, Lassiter?” Gus stood before Lassiter with his arms crossed.

“Is he okay?” Lassiter asked, standing up, peering over Gus’s shoulder.

“What do you care? You landed him here.”

“I know you’re mad but—”

“But it’s not what it looks like, right? Says every abuser.” Gus’s voice quieted down the loud clamor in the ER. Now, all the gaze was fixed on Lassiter.

His ears turning pink, Lassiter dragged Gus out of the ER and into the parking lot where there weren’t prying eyes and ears. “Did he tell you that? That I abused him?”

Gus’s eyebrows shot up, almost reaching his hairline. “Now, is that a threat?”

“What?! No!”

“’Cause it sounds to me you’re telling me if he tattles on you, you’d come back and finish him.”

“How much wax is in your ear canals?” Lassiter asked in a rapid speed with a high-pitched voice, his words less clear than he had intended. “I didn’t say that at all!”

“You didn’t have to say it. Shawn kept his mouth shut. He insists you did nothing. Day after day, I’m just more amazed by your emotional manipulation over him. He probably has Stockholm syndrome by now.”

“ _My_ emotional manipulation?”

“I took Harvard psychology classes online. Deal with it. Knowledge is power. I’ll give Shawn my piece of mind as soon as I get back in there. He’s too wrapped up in this to see the whole truth for himself.”

“What truth, Guster?” Lassiter sounded exhausted. “This was an accident. I would never hurt Shawn. I love him.”

“You broke up with him.”

“I…I wanted him to tell me he’s not psychic.”

“What’s next after he tells you? Ask him to quit his job? After he quits his job? Tell him he’s worthless? After he feels worthless? Have full control of his life?”

“Oh my god…” Lassiter turned his back to Gus and laced his fingers through his hair. “I can’t even—how do you escalate from A to Z that quick? I thought you were the sane one between you two.”

“He told me not to call the police.”

“Good, ’cause you’d be sending them on a witch hunt.”

“And judging by your position down at the station, Head Detective,” Gus said menacingly, “the accusation would never stick anyway.”

Lassiter opened his mouth but decided to drop this fight Gus was having with his imaginary self. He thundered into the building to find Shawn, Gus hot on his heels, afraid he would try to do something that would propel him to call the security. Drawing open the curtains, both of them found Shawn being pulled apart by two doctors. It dawned on them the girly scream they had heard outside came from him.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Lassiter growled.

One doctor let go of Shawn’s arm and reached out his hand to Lassiter, but Lassiter ignored it. “I’m Dr. Turk. We’re doing a reduction maneuver on your friend. We just pull, then the head of his humerus would pop back inside. Just pop. You know—pop!”

“You don’t have any pain medications?” Gus asked, slightly politer than Lassiter.

“We already gave him the highest dose of morphine.”

“Hey, Lassie!” Shawn slurred, shooting him a goofy smile. “Come to Papa.”

“If we don’t succeed this time,” Dr. Turk said, starting to pull Shawn’s arm again, “we’ll have to put your papa under.”

“Ahhhhhh—” Between his screams, Shawn managed to squeeze out, “Lassie, I hate you!”

Gus turned on his heels and said to Lassiter who was still as a statue next to him, “Stare all you want. It’s your doing. I can’t watch.” He rubbed his own shoulder as if sharing the pain of his brother.

* * *

For two weeks, Lassiter didn’t see Shawn and Gus come to the SBPD and use it as their playground. It was two weeks of horror when Lassiter spent every minute reliving the night when everything went downhill. He tried to tell himself he should feel relieved, considering he was rid of a fraud prancing about in the station and his life. But all he felt was a heartache that might have transcended the pain Shawn felt on his dislocated shoulder. Who was he kidding? If he could have a do-over, he would reconsider all his words and actions.

The opportunity presented itself when one night, Shawn rang his doorbell.

“Shawn…um, come on in.” Lassiter opened the door wide and stepped aside. “How’s your shoulder?”

“All good. My head too.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Gus says he’s sorry for what he said at the hospital.

“Is he really?” Lassiter asked skeptically.

“No, he’s not,” Shawn admitted. “I just thought that would be a good opening to set the mood. He’s actually waiting down there again. He wouldn’t let me come unless he plays my personal bodyguard even though I told him it’s physically impossible for him to take you down. But that only made him angrier and more eager to come with me.”

“You two are the same bone-headed clown,” Lassiter commented, a smile tugging on his lips.

“True.” Shawn shoved his hands into his pants pockets. His eyes flitted across the room.

“So how did you tell him to come last time? Via telepathic transmission?” Lassiter arched his eyebrows and joked.

“It might have been,” Shawn replied. “I didn’t tell him to come. He just thought I was in imminent danger.” Shawn used a light-hearted tone but Lassiter felt as grim as he could possibly be.

“What are you looking at?” he asked as Shawn peeled the room with his eyes.

“I’m trying to see if you’ve collected all my things, taken down my pictures, and put them in a box, just waiting for me to pick it up.”

“I—”

“I see you haven’t,” Shawn said, his voice chipper. He shuffled to the balcony and motioned Lassiter to join him.

Under the fluorescent street lights, the Blueberry was parked at the same spot as the last time. Gus was leaning against the car hood as he trained his gaze on the fifth floor, specifically his apartment.

Shawn waved at him and gave him a thumbs-up. Gus returned the gesture, though begrudgingly. He then pointed at his eyes with two fingers and pointed at Lassiter, mouthing “I’ll be watching you.”

“I think I did a kick-ass job convincing him you’re a good guy,” Shawn said. “Not an abuser by any chance. I went on and on and on and on.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re my boyfriend and he’s my best friend? And I care about what he thinks of you. I want you two to get along.”

“I broke up with you,” Lassiter said, dumbfounded by Shawn’s perception of the world. “Shouldn’t you hate me right now?”

“Oh, poor Lassie, thinking no one loves him. Yes, you broke up with me. But did I agree with that? I mean, if you’re still inclined to give us another chance, I’d—”

“I do,” Lassiter answered hurriedly.

“I still can’t tell you ‘the truth.’ At least not right now.”

Lassiter nodded. In his mind during the last two weeks, he had done everything he could to get Shawn back, ranging from sending him flowers with a card to begging him while kneeling and hugging Shawn’s legs, the last bit of which he would never do, but it was plausible in imagination.

“That’s it?” Shawn asked unbelievingly. “Just a nod? If you had been this chill last time, we wouldn’t have gone through all this.”

Lassiter hugged Shawn from behind gently and kissed the back of his head. He could see Shawn did his best to hide the patch of missing hair shaved by the ER doctor with his other still existent rowdy hair. “I just realized recently there’s something more important than ‘the truth.’”

“Which is…” Shawn baited, knowing the answer already.

“Your smart-ass.”

Shawn grinned, satisfied. Looking down to the street, he saw Gus shaking his head and huffing at their rapidly recovering intimacy. “Lassie, I still have something to tell you.”

“Mm?”

“Hypothetically, one man made a promise to another man who’s his best friend before starting a job that is potentially dangerous and could be considered a felony by so many, especially that man’s very own boyfriend who works for the law enforcement. And the promise was that he’d never tell anyone the truth.”

“Go on.”

“Lassie, I can’t tell you ‘the truth,’ but that doesn’t mean I won’t tell you other truths. Like one, I love Gus. I’d hate to see him in an orange jumpsuit. Orange is just not his color. Two, I love you and I don’t want to lose you because I’m busy picking up soaps behind bars. Three, I love my job. I can never be a cop like you or my dad. Helping people is just a bonus point. Psych is me having all the fun and none the chore.”

“I would never tell you to quit your job for me.”

“I know, Lassie. I know.” Shawn rubbed Lassiter’s hands resting on his belly. “I had a recurring dream when I was a child that aliens came to the Earth and abducted me so they could do experiments on my brain.”

“Jesus, why?” Lassiter screwed up his face, appalled by the images that jumped to the front of his mind. “Because you’re a psychic?”

“Because I can remember what I wore the first day I went to school, how many hats there were in the café my dad took me to one afternoon, Gus’s pharmaceutical manual on how to cure onychomycosis, and…where all your wrinkles are on your face.”

Lassiter was stunned into silence. His half-open mouth was about to drool.

“Like I said, I can’t tell you ‘the truth’ you want. I _am_ psychic.”

Lassiter buried his face into Shawn’s hair and breathed in. “This feels so good.”

“Am I the only one who’s thinking _Titanic_ right now?” Shawn asked. “Pose, Leo. I’ll ask Gus to take a picture of us.” After saying that, he shouted from the top of his lungs, “Gus! Take a picture!”

“That ship sank, Shawn,” Lassiter couldn’t help but point out.

But Shawn had already spread out his arms. After Gus snapped the photo and gave him another thumbs-up, Shawn turned around in his arms. One hand on his own chest, he tilted his head up and kissed Lassiter softly.

“But my heart will go on,” Shawn replied.

Lassiter shuddered, a sour taste rose inside his mouth.

“Too much?”

“Just take it down a notch.”


End file.
